Friday, December 16, 2011

Do You Call This Parenting Advice?

This is a guest post by Alec Duncan, who has
worked in the Early Childhood Education field since 1988.

When Greg
suggested I should write a guest blog post for Males in Early Childhood my
original intention was to tell about my career as a male in the early childhood
education field.How I first began as a
volunteer at a child care centre in 1988, then worked as an unqualified
educator while studying for a degree in Children Studies.How my work as a qualified early educator
coupled with my interest in making musical instruments from recycled materials
led me to running hands-on play-based music programs in schools and child care
centres.

It was going to be
light-hearted.It was going to be about
the enormous satisfaction I’ve gained from my work with the children I’ve cared
for and educated.It was going to be
about sharing the joy of music with very young children through my
micro-business, Child’s Play Music.

This is not that
post.

This post is dark
and disturbing. It makes depressing reading; it will make you angry; it may
make you weep.But please read it if you
care about every child and want to protect them from criminal physical abuse
masquerading as “discipline” and “parenting advice”.

For what heinous
crimes?For resisting a nappy
change.For crying.For refusing to sleep.For anything except instant and unquestioning
obedience to a parent’s demands, no matter how unreasonable those demands might
be.

At first I simply
did not believe that this was possible.Surely no one would get such books published, let alone sold!But as I followed the links to quotes from
the books I discovered it was true;
worse still they are big sellers.One,
“To Train Up A Child” by Michael and Debi Pearl has sold over 670,000 copies;
the death of 3 children has already been linked to it.And at that point I realised I needed to do
something about it, something more than just signing the petition.I’ve spent much of my life caring for and
educating infants and children; if not me, then who?

Make no mistake:
what these books advise is child abuse, abuse that in Australia would result in
criminal charges.I’m not ashamed to say
that when I read the quotes from them I wept.I signed the petition, posted about it on my Facebook Page, emailed
Amazon to tell them I would buy nothing from them until they stop selling these
books, and then contacted the author of the petition, Milli, who blogs as TheMule.

I asked Milli how
I could help her in this cause.She said
she was snowed under with the issue: could I research who else was selling the
books, who wasn’t, and contact the companies who don’t sell them for a
statement.I accepted immediately.To my further horror I discovered that
practically every major chain of booksellers in the US sells some or all of the
books.I could find only three major US
chains who weren’t selling them; Deseret Book, Seagull Book, and
Follett’s.We have contacted these 3
chains asking for a statement saying why they don’t sell the books and ask them
for a statement of support for our cause.

And the books are
available in Australia too!Both Angus
& Robertson and Collins Booksellers sell some or all of them.Milli and I are extending her campaign to the
other sellers of these reprehensible books, and we are seeking statements of
support from academics and child development experts for a major press
release.So far a large number of
prominent experts have signed; the number grows daily. http://mamamule.blogspot.com/2011/11/amazon-petition-look-whos-signing.html. Support has also come from influential child protection organisations, including the Child Rights International Network.

We
ask that you join us

What can you
do?Sign the petition – over 9,000
people have signed; every signature helps.Email Amazon and other sellers saying you will not buy from them until
these books are removed from sale.Email
your politicians demanding that action be taken to stop their sale.Spread the word to your friends and
colleagues.Share the petition on
Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.Write letters to the editor.Help Milli and me in our work.Everything you do for this cause helps
protect children from criminal child abuse.

I won’t post
quotes from the books here; they are too distressing.If you want to read them there are extensive
quotes available on the net.Quotes from
“To Train Up A Child” can be found here. http://whynottrainachild.com/2010/04/20/quotes-from-ttuac/.They are sickening.Diligent Googling will find similar quotes from
the other books; I will leave that exercise to you.

Alec is a qualified early childhood educator with a Bachelor of Social Science (Children Studies) who worked in long day care until 1998.

He then started Child’s Play Music which provides hands-on, play-based music education incursions to schools and child care centres in Perth Western Australia.These programs enable young children to freely explore a huge range of homemade instruments through play.

6 comments:

Thank you Alex for alerting me to this! I am horrified, sickened to my core and so angry about it! I will post this to my FB page to help create a wider awareness. This book (and others apparently) is just pure evil!

There was a segment on Anderson Cooper with the authour of this book and families who use it and parents who lost their children due to the use of this book. The whole show made me cry! This guy is cult like very scary! I will share this link!

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Welcome...

To Males in Early Childhood.Australia's number #1 place for mentoring, educating and supporting the invaluable contribution males bring to Early Childhood Education.

There are many people who have contributed their time and energy to this group from it's formation until quite recently. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all their efforts in promoting child care as a viable career for men & suppoorting those coming into the industry as well as those already within it.

In particular, we need to acknowledge the dedication of Craig d'Arcy, founder of the group and it's voice, face & backbone for years. Craig worked tierlessly, on behalf of the group and the early childhood profession in general. Much of the information found on this site was compiled by Craig himself. It was through Craig's commitment, enthusiasm and perseverence that the Summit of 2006 became a reality. He was also a Leadership Team member at the World Forum for Males in Early Childhood Education in Hawaii in 2008 which brought together industry leaders from around the world to discuss this very topic.

Thank you Craig for all that you have accomplished and continue to contribute to our cause.